My Definition of Normal

My First Rock Concert aka The Last of the Humanities Graduate

Of course I’d love to tell you about attending my very first rock concert. But they say that’s not important, so let me express my views on Japan’s decision to do away with humanities and social science subjects at their universities instead.

Yes, it was expensive. But it was worth it. Totally worth it. Am I talking about the concert or my university education? I don’t know. You decide.

I had a whole lot of fun, but it wasn’t easy. No regrets, however. There were people to contend with – condescending people, judgmental people, nasty people. But there were good ones too. Nice people, enthusiastic people, crazy good people. Some of them were there for the sake of being there. Some genuinely wanted to be there. Some were half-hearted, some went all out. It didn’t matter though. We were all there.

It’s difficult to find people with whom you share a solidarity, but once found, that feeling is just indescribable. Somehow though, be it fate or mere chance, you’re drawn together and the sparks that result from this meeting explode into the air. The resulting power is enough to influence many others around you to let go of their inhibitions and embrace the moment, even love it. Sometimes, the reaction might even create memories that could last you a lifetime.

Doing what you love and loving what you do are mantras that have been abandoned in favour of those proclaiming hardship and suffering – for ‘better’ lives. We aren’t even allowed to be passionate about something anymore. We have to work for the greater good. Individual happiness falls far behind collective progress, so much so that we feel sorry for feeling strongly. Paradoxically, we’re working as hard as we are, just so that we can preserve ‘good’ memories. We buy good phones with good video-recording capabilities so that we can revel in the good ol’ days. We are afraid to lose out. However, once we’re recording events behind the screen, we’re already losing out on the first-hand experience. Emotions are already being dialled-down.

I suppose this is what we’ve been taught ever since we were born. We’ve been taught to fear losing out on the ability to keep happiness about us and to fear intense feelings of sadness or anger. We don’t realise that we’re actually subconsciously fearful every time something very good happens to us. By worrying and letting our insecurities take over whenever we’re happy, we’re forgoing our chance of feeling intensely happy as well. We’ve been programmed to fear losing out – emotionally, and in turn, economically.

And that is exactly why we whip out our phones at rock concerts, just so we can keep feeling a secondhand excitement we felt while we were there, never mind that we didn’t jump around (and scream) as much as we would’ve liked to. And that is exactly why we’re engaging in a mass massacre of humanities students, just so we can concentrate our resources and our manpower on furthering our country’s economic progress and ensuring stable, mildly-satisfactory lives, never mind that we would have less diverse, less emotional experiences.

Seriously though, how can anyone stand perfectly still with an iPhone in her hand when everyone else is screaming “WHOA-OH LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER”?!